Midnight OilMidnight Oil is the story of the pipeline that changed everything for Alaska and helped shape the modern environmental movement. The trans-Alaska pipeline turns 40 this summer. Alaska's Energy Desk is marking the anniversary with a podcast that explores how Prudhoe Bay was discovered and what followed: the booms and busts, social progress and scandals, engineering marvels and environmental disasters.

Midnight Oil

Midnight Oil is the story of the pipeline that changed everything for Alaska and helped shape the modern environmental movement. The trans-Alaska pipeline turns 40 this summer. Alaska's Energy Desk is marking the anniversary with a podcast that explores how Prudhoe Bay was discovered and what followed: the booms and busts, social progress and scandals, engineering marvels and environmental disasters.More from Midnight Oil »

Ep. 8: The future of an oil state - What's next for Alaska?

August 1, 2017

Ep. 7: Foretold Disaster - the Exxon Valdez oil spill

August 1, 2017 • The Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989 killed hundreds of thousands of seabirds and brought commercial fishing in some of Alaska's most productive waters to a standstill. It's often talked about as an unprecedented, unthinkable event, but it was, in fact thinkable, and people tried to prevent it.

Ep. 7: Foretold Disaster - the Exxon Valdez oil spill

July 25, 2017

Ep. 6: When the lights went out - Alaska's great recession

July 25, 2017 • Less than ten years after oil started flowing, Alaska's economy cratered. The recession was quick and deep. Ten banks failed, real estate values plummeted and tens of thousands of people fled the state. It was Alaska's great recession, 20 years before the rest of the country went through almost the same thing.

Ep. 6: When the lights went out - Alaska's great recession

July 18, 2017

Ep. 5: How Alaska decided to give its oil wealth to everyone in the state

July 18, 2017 • In Alaska, we don't pay income tax. We don't pay state sales tax. But once a year every man, woman and child gets a cut of the state's oil wealth. There are plenty of other oil states in the world, but Alaska is the only one that treats residents like shareholders and sends them dividend checks every year.

Ep. 5: How Alaska decided to give its oil wealth to everyone in the state

July 11, 2017

Ep. 4: Fast times and fat wallets - how Alaska got its pipeline

July 11, 2017 • The trans-Alaska pipeline was the largest privately-funded construction project in the world, built across the biggest U.S. state and faced with unprecedented natural obstacles. It came with an $8 billion price tag, but true costs and benefits of the pipeline are still being calculated.

Ep. 4: Fast times and fat wallets - how Alaska got its pipeline

July 4, 2017

Ep. 3: How environmentalists won by losing the pipeline battle

July 4, 2017 • Environmental groups fought hard to stop the trans-Alaska pipeline. Ultimately they lost. But along the way they turned an obscure bit of federal code into required environmental scrutiny for every major construction project.

Ep. 3: How environmentalists won by losing the pipeline battle

June 27, 2017

Episode 2: Take Our Land, Take Our Life

June 27, 2017 • When Alaska became a state, the federal government agreed to hand over more than 100 million acres. There was just one problem. Alaska Native people already claimed that land. Then Alaska struck oil, and the question of who owned what land in the 49th state went all the way to the White House.

Episode 2: Take Our Land, Take Our Life

June 20, 2017

Episode 1: Alaska, the oil state that almost wasn't

June 20, 2017 • Oil started flowing down the trans-Alaska pipeline forty years ago, transforming Alaska into a wealthy oil state. But if it weren't for a few determined individuals, the giant oil field that started it all might still be hidden under the tundra today.